


reciprocity

by allp_wips



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-07-21 05:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19996645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allp_wips/pseuds/allp_wips
Summary: "You needn't worry."





	reciprocity

"You needn't worry."

The words exit Astra's mouth in a laboured way, as she lies there on the rooftop, dying.

Alex tries not to listen to her, she _can't_ listen to her. She needs to focus on staunching the bleeding somehow, has to somehow stop her sister's aunt from dying before Kara herself comes on the scene.

On the other hand, it's good to keep Astra talking, keep her conscious.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she mutters feverishly, as she continues working.

Above, she can hear J'onn speaking too, telling her it's too late. Him, Alex ignores. It doesn't matter if Astra is a lost cause, at this point. It's not even just about Kara. It's the fact that Alex can't live with herself, if she stands by and see someone die, even someone whom she'd stabbed with her own hands. It goes against everything she'd studied for. The DEO may have corroded many of her values, but not that.

"You needn't worry that I'll tell her," Astra replies now, stalling in between the words to draw heaving breaths.

"Tell her what?" Alex snaps, though she knows exactly what, by the cold that's clawing up her heart.

"That it was you," Astra replies. Her lips are trembling now, Alex notices. Maybe it's from the night chill. Strangely, she chooses that moment to wonder if Astra has ever felt the cold before. 

"That doesn't matter," Alex says. Of course it does. "She'll find out anyway."

"Not from me," Astra says, and then goes quiet, her eyes fluttering, as if they would close anytime soon.

Alex worries immediately, but there's still a pulse there, albeit a faint one.

"We need to get her to the DEO," she says, looking up at J'onn. "Come on, you can fly. Can't you just-"

"It's too late," he says, shaking his head.

Alex wants to scream at him, shout the place down, maybe break down and cry, but none of that is going to help.

"Kara," she says, grasping at straws. "Supergirl!"

She doesn't know why she yells that. She's the one person, out of everyone in National City, that knows that Supergirl can't solve everything, that even the Girl of Steel needs someone else to save her sometimes. Still, that's the name that exits Alex's lips.

Moments later, Kara arrives, fresh from her fight with Non, and Alex can present her with only a dying aunt.

When J'onn takes the blame for the killing, and Kara sinks to her knees, mumbling Kryptonese rites to see Astra off into whatever afterlife the Kryptonians believed they went to, Alex remains silent, only exchanging askance glances with J'onn.

But, even later that night, after they flee the rooftop, leaving Astra's unmoving body behind, the dead woman's last words don't escape Alex. Astra could have ruined her. With incisive words, she could have destroyed the relationship between Alex and Kara forever, and taken away the one source of support that had been a constant in Alex's life.

Instead, she had chosen in death to extend an olive branch, though she had refused to accept Alex's own in life. Alex wants to hate her for it, but she can't.

\---

_6 months later..._

Alex had wondered, while working on reviving Astra, how the woman would act when she woke up. Maybe she'd wake up raging, maybe she'd wake up confused, maybe she wouldn't want to wake up at all.

When the day finally comes, she doesn't expect Astra to get up calmly from the gurney, and look around her in a not-particularly-surprised way, before turning to Alex and voicing a question in a voice scratchy from disuse. "Where are we?"

"The DEO," Alex says, and sees panic spike in the woman's eyes. "It's okay; this is my personal lab, no one else has access, and no one else knows you're here."

"You were the one who stabbed me," Astra says, looking at her curiously. "Why bring me back, Brave One?"

Alex shrugs. For Kara? Because she hadn't been able to leave with her own guilt? Just to see if she can pull this off? No, none of those ring true, not really.

"Because you told me not to worry," she says.

A half year of near-death hasn't changed the arrogance of Astra, it seems, by the way she raises puzzled eyebrows at Alex. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I don't know," Alex admits. "Except, no one's told me that before."

The slight tipping up of Astra's lips is probably a smile. 

"What now then, Brave One?"

Alex risks a wary glance at the door. "I guess it's time to get you out of here. I can get us out without you being noticed, and you'll have to stay at my apartment until Kara knows you're alive again. Then, I guess we'll have to come to some sort of agreement with J'onn."

Astra ignores most of this, and focuses on what seems to matter most to her.

"Kara?" she asks, a note of apprehension entering her voice.

"She'll take it fine," Alex says. "She'll be so thrilled to have you back, everything else will fall by the wayside."

Leading the way towards the door, she can hear the Kryptonian following behind her without being asked to, like a lost puppy. It's oddly gratifying. Before she unlocks the door, Alex looks back at Astra, and gives her a slight smile of her own. "It's going to be okay. You don't have to worry."

\---


End file.
